The distribution and use of cracked copies is illegal in almost every developed country. There have been many lawsuitsover cracking software, but most have been to do with the distributionof the duplicated product rather than the process of defeating theprotection, due to the difficulty of constructing legally sound proofof individual guilt in the latter instance. In the United States, the passing of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act(DMCA) legislation made software cracking, as well as the distributionof information which enables software cracking, illegal. However, thelaw has hardly been tested in the U.S. judiciary in cases of reverse engineering for personal use only. The European Union passed the European Union Copyright Directivein May 2001, making software copyright infringement illegal in memberstates once national legislation has been enacted pursuant to thedirective.